1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a disc cartridge of a generally rectangular configuration for removably accommodating a disc-shaped recording medium such as, for example, an optical recording disc or a magnetooptical recording disc and, more particularly, to a slide shutter structure for selectively opening and closing an access window through which a recording and/or reproducing head is accessible to the recording medium within the disc cartridge.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The disc cartridge of the type referred to above is disclosed in, for example, the Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 3-280280, published in 1991. According to this publication, the disc cartridge comprises a generally rectangular flattened casing having an access window defined therein for the access of a recording and/or reproducing head to the recording medium. The publication referred to above also discloses the use of a slide shutter mounted on the cartridge casing for sliding movement along one of four sides thereof for selectively opening and closing the access opening.
In this prior art disc cartridge, to mount the slide shutter non-detachably, but slidably on the cartridge casing, the slide shutter is fitted to the cartridge casing by the use of two slide members which are pieces separate from the cartridge casing. The use of the separate slide members has a problem in that not only is the number of the component parts used to fabricate the disc cartridge increased, but the number of assembling steps is also increased. In addition, since the separate slide members are made from a metal sheet as is the case with the slide shutter, the use of the metallic material for the separate slide members tends to result in increase of the cost required to fabricate the disc cartridge as a whole.